


Fly

by Sinnael



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-14
Updated: 2012-11-14
Packaged: 2017-11-18 15:05:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/562367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sinnael/pseuds/Sinnael
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sephiroth reflects on a special day he spent with the man he loved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fly

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place in my AU series Ruin, long after Zack, Cloud, and the rest of Avalanche have passed on. Luckily, there isn't much in the way of spoilers for the unfinished AU, so I don't feel bad posting it.
> 
> *Don't own it*

He paused at the cliff’s very edge. He could hear the small fragments dislodge from the rock below his feet...but he never once heard one hit the ground far below. He was much too high, high enough to see the ruined city that still stood tall just before the horizon.

The cold steel and concrete had long ago been taken over by beautiful lush green, green that was slowly dying away in the winter air, but it was beautiful nonetheless. It remained a testament to this world’s survival, a testament to the wills of living things to survive and continue to thrive. And each year... it only seemed to get greener.

How he wished, though, that he did not have to witness it alone. He would gladly give up his life if it meant he would not be by himself...even at the cost of never seeing such beauty.

But his lone presence here marked another year, another year he’d survived without those he’d come to love.

Sephiroth had forgotten exactly how many years had gone by. He’d stopped counting once four centuries had passed. He only knew the days, the months, and when the end of the year approached. It had become an endless circle, it seemed; one that left him feeling hollow with each passing.

_“Just keep living, Seph. You don’t need me to go on.”_

Live on he did, for no other reason than because Zack had asked him to do so. But his life had become little more than watching time go on around him.

Most days were nothing but silent rituals to keep him grounded... to keep him from sinking into the depth of despair, rituals he followed with the compulsion of a man lost and desperate. He would return to the graves of his long lost comrades on the days that marked their births and deaths, remembering the very brief time he knew them. They’d been normal humans... they’d aged and passed so quickly in the wake of how long he himself has remained breathing. His vigils for them were ones of silence and reflection before he moved on, only to return the next year.

He would sit before Cloud’s grave in the same silence, leaving a flower on his birthday, wordlessly cleaning the six interlocking blades that had come to mark his resting place on the day of his death. He would never allow them to rust for long; his heart would not allow it.

He’d return to Cosmo canyon to watch Nanaki’s offspring as they conducted their rituals in memory of their father. He knew nothing of these customs, but he was there nonetheless to pay his respects. The beast had been the one to keep him company for the longest time after the others passed. Cosmo had become a home of sorts after Zack and Cloud’s deaths, until Nanaki finally met his end too. Then it became just another stop in his circular, but never ending journey.

Lilies were left on the graves of his daughter and the family he’d watched her create. She’d been the very last to pass on, and though they’d spent a great deal of life on the shakiest of ground... they always found each other together at these graves, Cloud’s... and Zack’s. He would imagine her presence next to him, knelt before them, and he imagined her moving to each one, stroking the name of her lover, and kissing the names of her sons and daughters. He would rest his head against her grave stone and hope that she had found her way back to Zack... and that they were both waiting for him. Then he would—as with the rest—leave with the silent vow to return next year.

Zack was the only difference.

He found himself reaching back and stroking the hilt of the massive sword now strapped to his back. He’d intended for the blade to be Zack’s grave marker... but he could never bring himself to part with it, the last and only piece of Zack he still had.

The day of Zack’s death was one of agony, a day when he would relish in the pain the never went away. His grave lay in the City of the Ancients, at the foot of the lake where Aerith had been put to rest. And though it always hurt to return... he could never cease going back, even if the time there was painful. But the day of Zack’s birth held a ritual much different.

And that was why he found himself here atop this cliff. This day was Zack’s birthday.

It was oddly fitting that Zack’s birthday was so late in the year, fortunate too. December was the final month, making this day was the very last one of significance each year. It had come to be the day he strived to reach, the day that marked another year of survival. It meant another year without the man he loved had passed... but it also brought him closer to his inevitable return to the planet, when Sephiroth could finally reunite with him.

This day held many of his fondest memories.

He recalled, as he did each time, the very first birthday he had the chance to celebrate with Zack. It had been months after Meteor’s fall, when they were finally able to rebuild the lives they’d barely had the chance the construct together. For several days before, Sephiroth had fretted and struggled, having no idea what to do to celebrate, what gift to give him; all the while Zack stood by, often concerned and completely clueless. He’d been told that whatever gift he gave, it had to be one that meant something...one that came from his heart. Of course that had done nothing but cause him more confusion.

Only when the eve of Zack’s birthday was upon him did it finally dawn on Sephiroth, the only meaningful gift he could ever give.

He remembered a night they spent on Costal del Sol, when they sat on the beach in the dead of night, Zack pressed close and stroking the spot over his right shoulder blade.

 _“I kinda envy you, Seph,”_ he’d said.

_“And why is that?”_

_“Well, you can fly. I wish I could have wings... I’d love to fly.”_

And so, for Zack’s birthday, he gave Zack that chance. He’d brought the younger man to this very cliff, just as the sun was setting, coloring the wastes in a radiant golden light. Zack had been as clueless as ever... even after the massive wing emerged in a flurry of black feathers. Sephiroth remembered the shout he lover gave as he held him close and threw them both over the cliff’s edge, only for it to morph into shouts of utter joy as they sailed high above.

He took them over Midgar and Edge before turning and heading towards the plains, and all the while he relished in Zack’s laughter.

He remembered when they finally landed in the dead of night—the farm miles to the west, the mountains to the east—and Zack kissed him, clutching him and pressing close. Their bodies fell onto the lush grass, and the night passed on in a flurry of shed clothes, frantic kisses and breathless ‘I love you’s. He’d never felt so ecstatic.

Suddenly, the biting December air woke him from his reverie, and he was once again faced with the present. He was once again alone, his heart broken and hollow. But those memories left him with just the slightest of smiles upon his face. This was the day he struggled on for, and this moment was one that made it all worth it.

He looked up to the horizon; the sun was setting, the sky a stunning mix of blue, gold, and pink hues.

He reached back, stroking the hilt of the Buster Sword once more, and for a moment, the weight as not one of cold steal, but of a warm body, pressed against his back, arms draped around his shoulders. He could almost feel a warm breath ghost over his ear, a single quiet word uttered in the wind.

_“Fly...”_

His body pitched forward over the cliff’s edge.

For the briefest moment, he fell, just before his wing burst from this shoulder. Then he sailed, just as he’d done all the centuries ago. His eyes fell closed as the air rushed across his body. For a moment, the pain was gone. He held no longing for death’s embrace, his heart no longer crushed by the weight of his loneliness. For a moment, he was completely and utterly free.

And he would swear that he could hear Zack’s voice, joyfully shouting to the sky above.


End file.
